Dear colleagues,

I've just returned from a week at Evaluation 2013, our annual conference. From the feedback I received from you, I think many of you had great personal and learning experiences at the conference. (But, please do complete the evaluation form that was sent to you via email. I'm sure my sample was biased, and we would love your feedback to help us do more next year.) Meanwhile, I will use my monthly column to highlight some elements of the conference. 

First, the weather was beautiful! We could not have asked for more sunny, 60-degree, gorgeous fall weather. I hope many of you got out to see a bit of Washington D.C., as I did on Sunday. And, thanks again, to our local arrangement co-chairs, David Bernstein and Valarie Caracelli, the Washington Evaluators group, and the scores of volunteers who helped them to tell us about D.C. 

As you know, the board recently voted to have D.C. as our site every four years. This decision was made in order to make connections with government folks in the city who make evaluation policies and decisions on funding. We also are happy that this will allow us to draw on the abundance of evaluators and speakers who work in D.C. Many other professional associations do such a rotation, and we thought we should take up this good idea. We will be able to build on the work of the local arrangement chairs and their volunteers to make the most of this decision. To demonstrate the possibilities in D.C. at this conference, George Grob arranged a reception for and a dialogue with federal evaluators and policymakers. Many of them stayed to attend sessions at their first AEA and indicated they hope to return. George Julnes arranged a similar reception and dialogue with foundation leaders, and many key representatives from that stakeholder group attended the conference and learned more about our work. 

This conference was our first since our change to new management. Susan Kistler, our former executive director, stayed with us to develop the program and give strategic advice to SmithBucklin. Next year, she'll be with us as a member, and we look forward to her participation in that role. Meanwhile, Denise Roosendaal, our new executive director, and the staff of SmithBucklin, our new association management company (AMC), provided a seamless transition, handling the many logistics of the conference as well as the details — verything from directing us to rooms and notifying us of program changes as the federal government came back to life to making sure we had coffee, tea, water, and soda to tide us over during our breaks. They accomplished all this in a calm, unobtrusive way that allowed us to go on about our main business of attending sessions, making contacts, meeting old friends, and making new ones. 

For those of you who were unable to attend the conference — and for attendees who, of course, cannot make every session — we will be posting some papers and PowerPoint slides from the plenary sessions, presidential strand sessions, and a few other highlights on the website soon. I just wish we had a film of Huey Chen's session on "Are Threats to Internal Validity a Curse or a Blessing for Evaluation? Lessons Learned from a Zumba Class"! I heard wonderful things about it. (I do hope we can do some video next year.) We will also post some pictures to give you a sense for the conference and the enthusiasm we all felt. 

I would like to again thank my program co-chairs, Kathy Newcomer and Jonny Morell, and my program committee — Tom Schwandt, Leslie Goodyear, Marco Segone, Katherine Dawes, and Mike Hendricks — for their tremendous work in helping put together some absolutely wonderful sessions that made us aware of the breadth and depth of evaluation practice, among us and beyond us, today.  

Sincerely,

Jody

Jody Fitzpatrick

AEA 2013 President  

Melvin E. Hall, Ph.D., is professor of educational psychology at Northern Arizona University. Hall completed his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in social psychology and educational psychology, respectively. He received his M.S. in counseling from Northern Illinois University.

Throughout a 36-year professional career in higher education, Hall has served in four successive appointments, as an academic dean, comprised of positions at Florida Atlantic University, University of California-Irvine, University of Maryland at College Park, and Northern Arizona University (NAU). At NAU, Hall served as dean of the College of Education and, additionally, was the principal investigator on two five-year U.S. Office of Education GEAR UP grants, providing dropout prevention programs and services to thousands of middle and high school students throughout Arizona. 

Hall additionally provides public service as an appointed member of the Arizona State Supreme Court Committee on Character and Fitness, which reviews all candidates for admission to the practice of law in the state of Arizona, and the 2013 Visioning Scottsdale effort to create the state mandated update of the city's General Plan. His primary teachings include educational research, program evaluation and two courses he developed titled "A Developmental Perspectives on Human Diversity," and "Foundations of Inquiry and Practice in Human Relations," which are offered as core courses in a master's program in human relations.  

In his ballot statement, Hall stated: "What I would bring to the AEA Board is diligence in positioning the association as an unwavering advocate for the public fiduciary responsibility inherent in the field. When work done in the name of program evaluation fails to prioritize a concern for the public good, demonstrate a willingness to be open to public scrutiny and transparency of methods, methodology, and purpose, in my view it is no longer program evaluation." 

We welcome Melvin E. Hall and thank all who participated in this year's election process! 

Name: Robin Lin Miller

Affiliation: Professor of Ecological-Community Psychology, Michigan State University

Degrees: B.A., Liberal Arts (Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, N.Y.), M.A., and Ph.D., Community Psychology (New York University, New York, N.Y.)

Years in the Evaluation Field: Approximately 27

Joined AEA: 1992

Why do you belong to AEA?

Because it's awesome! My first fulltime evaluation job was as an internal evaluator at the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) in New York City. I started there during a key historical period in the domestic AIDS epidemic just after the formation of ACT UP and prior to our having much to offer in the way of biomedical treatment for the disease. We were in uncharted territory in so many ways, with organizations like GMHC, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and AIDS Project Los Angeles leading the way in prevention, patient advocacy, and many other areas. It was exciting, yet often overwhelming as a junior evaluator gaining her sea legs and trying to provide useful information in the face of such a complex and urgent social issue. Thankfully for me, I met Ross Connor through our mutual connection to the American Foundation for AIDS Research and, through him, was introduced to AEA. AEA provided me with the professional support, role models, and learning opportunities to improve my work and sharpen my thinking. AEA continues to be the place that most stimulates my imagination and fosters my professional growth. From day one, it was my primary professional home.  

Why do you choose to work in the field of evaluation? 

In addition to the fact that I love the intellectual challenge of figuring out how to get useful and credible information in very messy real-world situations, I see evaluation as an essential tool to address issues such as HIV. Evaluation can ensure that the experiences and perspectives of the intended beneficiaries of programs and policies are closely examined. Without evidence produced through evaluation, many populations in need will be left to the mercy of others' benevolence. I began to lose lifelong friends and acquaintances to AIDS in 1981. During the earliest years of my volunteer and professional involvement in AIDS, the community I lived in on Fire Island held 30 or more memorial services a month for men who had recently died. Among the men memorialized in these services were men whom I had known from my earliest childhood. 

Between 1986 and 1995, I lost two of my dearest friends, several close GMHC colleagues, and numerous acquaintances. During those years, I would often leave work to spend my evenings to help take care of friends who were ill or dying. With the advent of improved treatment, three of my closest friends are healthily living with HIV today, two of whom became infected more than 20 years ago. That is a miracle I wouldn't have ever imagined back then. Thinking of these friends reinforces how important it is to me to contribute something to efforts to prevent other communities of people from ever having to experience the devastation HIV wrought in the lives of my friends. I think of evaluation as a critical tool through which this can be accomplished. 

I frequently work with small AIDS organizations in devastated areas such as Detroit. Every time I meet an 18- or 19-year-old young black gay man who just learned that he is HIV infected or someone living with HIV who is ill and not in medical care, it reinforces for me how critical it is that evaluators are out there trying to help communities navigate from where we are now to a place where young people are at minimal risk of exposure and people who are living with HIV can do so in health and with dignity. 

What's the most memorable or meaningful evaluation that you have been a part of?

Hard question! I'm torn between two recent evaluations. The first was a statewide assessment of the HIV prevention needs of black gay and bisexual men ages 12-24 for the Department of Community Health. That was an especially meaningful project because I hired six young black gay men who lived in different hard-hit areas of the state and who were all younger than 24 as co-investigators. They were part of every decision and aspect of the study from what to ask about and how, to hiring and training interviewers, to disseminating the findings to Michigan's statewide HIV prevention and care planning body. When these young men stood up and reported findings such as that about a third of the 180 young men we interviewed from across the state had been sexually assaulted, on the average before they had reached the age of 12, you could have heard a pin drop. One of the young men organized a town hall meeting on the findings in Detroit and, five years later, young men in the community still refer to it as their study. 

The second looked at the long-term health outcomes of HIV-infected people who had used a prison release re-entry service designed to link them to medical care. That was memorable because we had a tiny budget, a very tight timeline of seven months, and we had to track down 190 people who could have been released from prison as long as eight years ago and could now be anywhere. It took a lot of ingenuity and effort to answer the questions under the constraints we had to work with, but we did it. We found the vast majority of the 190 and learned something about how most had fared since release. 

What advice would you give to those new to the field?

Get involved with a TIG or local affiliate; don't just show up to their sessions and events. Volunteer! Take advantage of the resources that AEA has to offer, such as AEA 365, the Coffee Break Webinars, the thought leader forums, and the professional development sessions associated with the conference. Not only do these provide great no- to low-cost learning opportunities, they are essential means to build a diverse professional community of colleagues to support your future work. Join other evaluation societies. And, network, network, network!